how many attempts to serve?

cindy1971

February 6, 2004

I am trying to have the birth mother served and so far, the sheriff's department has made two attempts and have not had any luck. They told me they would try a couple more times. My question is how many attempts do I need to make before I can petition the court to publish. I'm getting down to the wire and don't know what to do.

ckiynnea

February 11, 2004

All you need to do is go down to your court house and request a hearing to publish packet. At least they have one in my county. That will give all the paper work you need. Do you know where Mom is?

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February 13, 2004

Why did your attorney let you use the Sherrif's office? Your attorney should have told you that hiring a process server is the best way to get a person properly served; that the Sheriff's department rarely is successful. Knowing not to rely on the Sheriff's office for something like that is part of the experience and knowledge you are paying him/her for. As you say you're "getting down to the wire" I would get hold of your attorney immediately and insist that a process server be hired. I personally would not want to bypass having the bmother properly served.

cindy1971

February 13, 2004

They were able to serve her the other day and of course the nasty phone calls began. The birth mom is begging and pleading with us not to do this to her and she will fight this. And suprise, suprise, today valentine's day cards arrived for my step daughter. I guess now, I'll just wait until next month when the termination hearing takes place. Thanks!

ColleenP

February 18, 2004

In my case I didn't know where he worked just his house. I had a process server go to his house to find out he moved.

I then had to mail a letter to the post office to see if there was a forwarding address, none.

I had to document that he had no phone and no job that I knew of and he had not contacted me.

After going to court twice with no chance to serve the judge finally granted me my publication and it was hard.

I placed the add because I wanted to get it over with and in the middle of the ad running I had to extend the ad to run a few more weeks because you can not change the ad in any way and they did not give me a far enough out date (ad has to run once a week for 4 consecutive weeks and he has 3 weeks to respond, so you need a court date at least 8 weeks out).

I had to jump though hoops to do this but it was worth it.

Oh yeah just check around because it is VERY expensive to run this ad. In Sacramento there was only a few that would do this type of ad and it ranged for $900 and below I found the cheepest for $350.

Just some info for you on my experience, Oh yeah I did this on my own without a lawyer and it was confusing. Very few people had correct information on how to run this type of ad.